Rear-engine cars are fun to drive and even more fun to crash. While
rear-engine packaging offers enormous advantages, putting the vehicle's
heaviest component behind the rear axle gives cars a distinct tendency
to spin out, sort of like an arrow weighted at the end. During World War
II, Nazi officers in occupied Czechoslovakia were banned from driving
the speedy rear-engined Tatras because so many had been killed behind
the wheel. Chevrolet execs knew the Corvair — a lithe and lovely car
with an air-cooled, flat-six in the back, a la the VW Beetle — was a
handful, but they declined to spend the few dollars per car to make the
swing-axle rear suspension more manageable. Ohhh, they came to regret
that. Ralph Nader put the smackdown on GM in his book Unsafe at Any Speed,
also noting that the Corvair's single-piece steering column could
impale the driver in a front collision. Ouch! Meanwhile, the Corvair had
other problems. It leaked oil like a derelict tanker. Its heating
system tended to pump noxious fumes into the cabin. It was offered for a
while with a gasoline-burner heater located in the front "trunk," a
common but dangerously dumb accessory at the time. Even so, my family
had a Corvair, white with red interior, and we loved it.
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